I actually agree with this a lot. I found Richard and Amelia more interesting persons than Lara herself during the DLC (Amelia's voice acting really helps, she sounds so enthusiastic about life about art, it's very endearing). But again, I never need Lara to be that interesting to enjoy a plot, all she needs to do is show some fascination with ancient ruins and I am positively in love

I hated Camilla's performance when TR2013 came out. I think she's a terrible choice for Lara. But looking back I think it's more about the writing direction and not the performance. Once I dissociate reboot Lara from the classic Lara and view them as two completely different persons, I actually think she's a very good choice for the role. And yes, she improved a lot by the third game.

They're definitely two different persons honestly.

I'm still hoping for a Tomb Raider Multi-verse where each iteration of Lara meet one another.

I wouldn't say Classic Lara was more "Nuanced" I kind of want to say "less is more" they revealed her back story and all. And that was it, no artefacts/documents to describe any past events. It would have been up to us to speculate what Lara would have done in her time. What kind of person she is?

I meant the actual world of the Classic games. Wheras LAU is clearly light, escapist entertainment and the Reboot has it's dark and gritty world, the classics were in much more of a gray area. It was a mix of everything from pulp, science-fiction, action, horror, etc. On the surface, it was another Indiana Jones type adventure, but actually playing the games, you saw that the world was pretty unique on it's own.

As far as Classic Lara goes, there was absolutely no nuance. I agree with pretty much all your observations.

In literally any other TR game Kurtis Trent would be a villain, but AOD tries to paint him as sympathetic and fails miserably.

Before this we see him doing nothing of use (Reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette), when he does get involved though...

- Taking Lara's weapons (in theory leaving her defenseless against the cops) and the Obscura Painting from her (That's not even counting the inappropriate touching - Classic Lara's beat the crap out of guys for less)
- Trapping her in a chamber

And the game still expects me to believe Lara would willingly cooperate with him after that?...uh, no. At best Classic Lara would see him as a means to an end, or at worst, shoot him when she got the chance.

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Honestly I can understand your rant. I'm pretty sure everytime Rise and Shadow are panned, 90% it's just because of Lara and ONLY Lara, as if the games didn't have any features except Lara.
I get the criticism about her and I could agree at some points, it's not the issue, but there is much more than that.

Anniversary Lara also smiled like a psychopath at her blood soaked hands because, you know that's fantastic character development and the best way to handle a characters supposed first kill. It amuses me the rebooted games are torn apart for the handling of the first kill yet no one even addresses Anniversary's handling of it.

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In your own way, at your own pace, pulling through!